by Corri Lee
“Collar me indeed.” I tutted, knowing that I was, in fact, well and truly collared beyond doubt. Maybe that was most of the reason why I hated my finger feeling so bare—I couldn’t stand the idea of not feeling the physical binding and that nobody could see that I belonged to him. Regardless, a new ring wouldn’t be the same and I told him so.
“Then we appear to have reached an impasse. And if I know you at all, I know that impasses are insurmountable on an empty stomach.” Blaze guided me by the shoulders to the table laid out for us. A variety of sushi rolls were already waiting on the table, along with an impressive bowl carved out of ice carrying wafer thin slices of salmon and vegetables. He’d ordered me a large, perfectly cooked dish of peppered steak, knowing that it’s what I would have chosen for myself.
Chris looked as hacked off as I did, presumably because he was spending another Valentines Day single. He kept his nose in a book while I said grudging hellos to Daniel and Jonathan. They were rosy cheeked and grinning, clearly feeling considerably more festive than the rest of us. I wondered how much energy it took to look so much in love every damn day, fairly sure I couldn’t remember their relationship being anything other than simple on the inside.
Blaze gathered my hair at my nape and ducked behind me to nuzzle just behind my ear. With a deep inhale, he whispered, “You smell transcendent.” The hairs on my arms rose and stood on end, as did my hackles. He was acting like my lost ring didn’t matter—my lost, one of a kind, promise-in-a ring. It mattered. It mattered a lot. It should have mattered to him because it mattered to me.
“Transcendence doesn’t have a smell.” I stabbed at the steak moodily. Calloway and I had eaten in that restaurant enough times for me to know that it would be succulent and full of flavour, and as soon as I tasted it I’d be giddy and high from a foodgasm, but I really wanted to drag out my bad mood. I wanted to be pissy, damn it. So irrationally foul-tempered it made everyone else pissy, too. Wanted my friends to be as mad at Esme for insisting we shared a locker when there was a room full of them.
Daniel chewed on his thumbnail as he looked at me thoughtfully—watched me delay the pleasure of tasting my food. As soon as I realised I was doing it, I cut off a chunk and shoved it into my mouth. Hell if I was going to start finding more joy in looking at my meals than eating them again.
Jonathan set down his chopsticks and stroked his chin with a single finger. “What did you get Blaze for his birthday?”
Crap. His birthday. My mission to be miserable was effectively decommissioned with the reminder that it was Valentine’s Day in more ways than one. My responsibility was to make sure he had a good day. Sulking could wait.
I stared at Jonathan until I’d swallowed my mouthful. “It’s a surprise. He’s getting it later. Much later.”
“Great,” Chris stuck his tongue out at me, “waiting all day for a gift he might hate is an awesome way to end a birthday. Said no man ever.”
“Maybe I just have a good reason to not divulge the details. Maybe it’s something personal.”
“ ‘Personal’?” Esme winked and nodded to Blaze’s plate. He’d ordered the same dish for himself. I knew it would be less to do with a lack of autonomy and more to do with him having absolute trust in my discerning palate. “Steak and a blowjob. Happy birthday, indeed.”
“If she cut my blowjobs down to just birthdays, I might have something to say about the severe drop from daily.” The look I got from my friends made me chuckle into a glass of water. It was shock mixed with pride and laced with jealousy. What could I say, really? I couldn’t actually remember the last time I hadn’t ended up on my knees during a morning shower he always intruded on. I loved watching him come apart—the torrid heat that rose off his skin while he groaned my name, the privilege of seeing him so weak and grateful, the scent of his sweat and taste of his—
“Get that look off your face, vixen. This is a family restaurant.”
Being back with Blaze made me feel better. He kept his hand wrapped around mine so I scarcely felt the absence of my ring. I hid the devastation well, keeping my mind focused on him at all times. Not difficult, of course. It was impossible to not have my attention riveted to him when he was just so... there—tall, dark, handsome and heavenly.
We pretty much just milled around for the afternoon, bouncing between landmarks and coffee shops. We took the subway up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and wandered for a couple of hours, giving me chance to finally see the Temple of Dendur exhibit. It was everything I hoped; it was tranquil, beautiful and I was seeing it with Blaze.
He pulled me in front of him and wrapped his arms around me from behind, chin on my shoulder as we looked out through the wall of slanted windows across the tree tops. “I want to go to the Empire State Building at sunset.”
I nodded, noting how the sky was already starting to darken. We’d need a cab rather than a train if we stood any chance of getting there in time. “Requisite Valentines Day viewing?”
“Absolutely.”
Obviously we weren’t the only couple to feel that way. The one-hundred and second floor observatory was crammed full when we arrived, just in time to see half of the sun left poking over the horizon.
I thought I might be in heaven. A flaming ribbon of red bordered the thick spread of buildings, fading outwards into orange and yellow that blended into an otherwise indigo sky. The undersides of the clouds lit up like angels, streaks of dimming sunlight splaying out across the atmosphere. Just a split-second glimpse of the view was intoxicating enough to send me into euphoria.
Blaze crept up behind me, stroking his fingers across my hands which were white-knuckle-gripping the safety railings more through poetic bliss than fear of falling. “This would be such a clichéd place to propose to someone.” It was. Thousands of men might have done just that already before we’d even arrived.
“Hah, yeah. I bet there’s a man up here pitching woo right now. Idyllic view of a stunning city. Beautiful sunset to match. He drops to his knee when she’s not looking and she turns—gasps!” I spun around theatrically and clasped my hands to my chest. My head dropped from my natural eye level to the floor. “Uh... Blaze? You’re kind of on the floor. On bended knee. On the top of the Empire State Building. On Valentines Day at sunset.”
His emerald irises gleamed up at me, illuminated by sunset rays. “Got a problem with that?”
My eyes widened. Holy cow. For all my days, I’d been told to believe that life should revolve around extravagant moments like these—that this would be a tale I’d relay to grandchildren in a death-bed moment of romanticism.
I never imagined it would feel like my heart had stopped, expanded, exploded and pounded all at once.
Holding up my hands to silence him before he spoke again, I closed my eyes and took several long, deep breaths.
“What are you doing?”
“Sucking it in. That moment between knowing what you’re going to say but you haven’t said it yet so the atmosphere is fuelled by hope, anticipation and presumption.” I opened one eye and wrinkled my nose. “I’m spoiling it, aren’t I?”
Blaze laughed softly and nodded. “A little.”
Allowing me a second to compose myself, he dug a hand into his pocket and reached out for my hand. I gave it to him. Out of sufferance, obviously.
“If you’d told me that I’d be at the top of the Empire State Building with Henry Tudor’s youngest daughter doing this on my thirtieth birthday this time last year, I would have laughed at you. And yet, here we are. In my whole life, I never could have imagined finding someone who filled an emptiness I’ve felt for as long as I can remember.”
He pulled out a ring. My ring. The ring I’d thought was gone forever. And I could hear Esme laughing somewhere nearby.
It had all been set up. Of course it had. Now I thought about it, there weren’t even any drains in that locker room. I’d just been too consumed with panic to remember.
Blaze pulled me closer and held it up, hand visibly shak
ing. How could he ever be nervous? “Emmeline.”
“Blaze.”
He shrugged at me almost bashfully. “Will you be my Mrs. Valentine?”
If he’d have asked me this way six months ago, it would have been awkward. I would have had to explain my unreadiness and doubts, ruining our relationship for sure. Or I might have really committed to it without knowing that I wasn’t the first woman to take his name.
Only one thing had changed in that time; me. I understood now what he meant when he’d said I’d grown, and now I understood that scheming look in his eye when he said it. He knew that I could handle something adult now—that I was strong enough to stop clinging to my childhood somehow, whether or not my reckless life was the embodiment of that immaturity and regardless of whether it was intentional. I could let the past go, and I’d never been more sure of the future.
Besides, I could hardly refuse him on his birthday.
“Yes, please.” Blaze jumped up and spun me around, setting me down only when I was too dizzy to hear the rapturous applause around us. We kissed until he breathlessly pulled away and put my ring back in its rightful place, somehow worth more now than it had a minute earlier.
“Thank you for the best birthday gift ever.”
I rolled my eyes, derisively rocking back onto my heels. “Just as well, seeing as you just fucked up what I had planned.”
“Why?” He nipped at my lower lip, growling a low seductive purr that sent a dangerous jolt of need through me. My earlier concerns about a trip to hospital might just be realised. “Were you going to go for the other cliché; take me on a horse-drawn carriage around Central Park at midnight and propose?”
I put one hand on my hip and sighed sharply, pulling a ring box from my bag and snapping it open on a huff. “Happy birthday.”
“Wha—” Blaze gaped at the thick silver-black band nestled into the suede lining, fingers wrapping around my hand.
So I still had a few surprises hiding up my sleeve—I wouldn’t be a good mega-moguls daughter if I hadn’t learnt a thing or two about shock value and playing my cards close to my chest.
“Hell, Emmeline. Do you have any idea how amazing you are?”
I didn’t. Luckily for me, he’d just signed up for a lifelong obligation to tell me.
I presumed his answer was ‘yes’.
It was impossible. Almost as impossible as imagining a whole café. The Tudor Initiative had far too many subsidiary companies with their own budgets, investments in outside ventures, donations to charities and organisations, not to mention the ridiculous volume of residential property Henry owned and rented out...
And it was stupid of me to think I could do it single-handedly. No wonder he’d been reluctant to give me the paperwork. There were just too many spreadsheets to create, cross-reference and analyse. I’d need laser-precise focus, an intravenous drip pumping coffee directly into my blood stream and a month hidden away as a social recluse—absolutely no contact with another human whatsoever.
Another impossibility, seeing as I had the most distracting, pheromone exuding fiancé on the planet.
Blaze hadn’t been happy when I’d launched back into full-blown work mode the minute we got home. We’d been back in the flat twenty-six hours and he’d seen more of the back of my head than the front of it. I’d apologised profusely, but I had warned him that this was the cost of spending another week away.
He walked behind me. I knew he was naked without even looking at him. His footsteps were prouder, heavier and broader when he roamed nude. If he brought me coffee, I knew exactly what he was aiming for; I got wild on a caffeine rush—sexy wild.
A mug of coffee appeared at my shoulder. I laughed to myself and shuffled across the couch to let him sit. Wearing nothing but a smile and the ring that suited him better than I ever imagined, he’d never looked more gorgeous. Maybe it was the official and mutual commitment to ownership—I don’t know. Maybe I just liked that his state of possession was on show for everyone to see like mine had been. I hadn’t insisted on him wearing it on his left hand but he’d done it anyway. He’d devoted that finger to me before the ‘I do’s but had never worn a wedding band to say he belonged to Natasha. That simple fact made me feel a little smug.
“Found anything yet?”
I squirmed against the gentle tickle of Blaze’s fingers tracing shapes on my shoulder. “No, though I don’t really know what I’m looking for. All the numbers add up but something just doesn’t feel right about it. It seems like an awful lot of money.”
“That’s because it is a lot of money.” He shuffled through the paper hard copies I’d been attacking with highlighter pens and whistled at the total sum of projected budgets from all the sources combined. Then his hand dropped into his bare lap suddenly, his face stony and fraught. “It’s okay for me to be looking at this information, right?”
I stifled a laugh. “After some of the things we’ve done in that—” I pointed, “—bedroom, I would say confidentially should the least of Henry’s concerns.” Unlike this horrible gut feeling I had. “I just wish I knew his biggest. What am I missing?”
“Well, this shouldn’t be on here.” Blaze pointed to an address on a list of recently acquired properties. “This is my mother’s house. He bought it outright ten years ago and turned it over to her.” Now why in hell would Henry do something like that? Blaze cut me off before I could ask. “Pass me a highlighter.”
Half an hour later, we were both sat on the floor with papers scattered out between us, him still naked and my coffee cold. My curiosity over why Henry had siphoned so much money into my fiancé’s upbringing was completely drowned out by the train wreck unfolding on my new Persian rug.
Henry had been supporting Blaze and his mother for years, though the support had dwindled when Blaze had the means to keep comfortably his mother himself. University fees, private medical care costs and renovations from ten years ago were still being pumped out of the business accounts every month, the transaction names so discrete only someone who knew the details themselves would notice the discrepancies.
Someone like Blaze, who’d been monitoring finances for his mother with his wicked physicist maths skills.
Which meant someone crooked with the know-how had been tinkering with the payment details.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want to get involved,” I sighed, wringing my hands in my lap. “You run business like a callous bastard and people screw you over. As evident here.”
Blaze scooted across the floor to me and pulled me over to sit in the fold of his crossed legs. “Let him look into it before you make assumptions like that. I might be wrong.”
“Are you ever wrong?”
He pursed his lips coyly. “Not where numbers are concerned. I was wrong about this afternoon, however.”
I snuggled into him, relaxed by the feel of his hands stroking my back. “How so?”
“I thought I’d have time to hammer enough orgasms into you to keep you calm enough to get through the night.”
With a snarl, I heaved myself to my feet and started to gather the paperwork, moment of tenderness killed. He knew my feelings about the evening already, but I’d voice them again just so he had one last chance to see it sensibly. “This is so fucked up, Blaze. Current wife holds engagement party for husband and new fiancée. To make it weirder, new fiancées friends are invited. And to put the cherry on top, new fiancée and husband spend night in current wife’s guest room, which so happened to be husband’s bedroom not so long ago.”
“Are you going to talk in badly worded, half-fractured sentences all night?” If it got me out of the party, I’d talk that way for the rest of my life. “I know it’s fucked up, Emmeline. But you’ll only ever do it once.”
“God damn fucking right I’ll only do it once. I hate that you signed me up for this without even asking. It’s not even neutral territory.” Sinking down to the floor, I went for the only option of defence I had left.
I begged. Pleaded and o
ffered a multitude of bribes in return—domestic and sexual. “Please don’t make me do this.”
Blaze sighed, patting my head. “Cupcake...”
“Don’t ‘cupcake’ me. I know that if you’re cupcaking me, it means she’s getting her way. You signed me up for this without asking, knowing I’d say no; you’re forcing me into a situation that’s going to cause me anxiety and serves no purpose other than massaging her ego and making her think her wants are more important than mine.”
“Are you done ranting?”
“No. I fucking hate her, Blaze. I wish she’d die faster.” And caustic remarks like that were exactly why we shouldn’t be in the same room. I hated myself for saying it but I couldn’t deny that there was a grain of truth to it. “This is one curve ball you can throw at me that I won’t catch. It’s practically a foul pitch.”
“Emmeline...”
I wrenched away, my battle lost. He just didn’t see what he was doing to me, how much it was upsetting me to imagine being in that situation. “You’re spoiling it, Blaze. Spoiling us by putting her needs before mine; treating me like the mistress we both know I really am.”
“Emmeline.” My hands fisted against the urge to swing for him. If he said my name once more, I’d scream. “For you to be a mistress, I’d have to consider myself married and I never have. If I’d wanted to spend the six years before we met screwing around on her, I would have.”
Not the answer I was looking for. To imply that our relationship had been less of an out of the ordinary, no-holds-barred, unpredictable and uncontrollable love affair gone awry and more of a ‘she fits my very particular bill’ fling was an insult to me and he knew it.